» PCI Express Sound Blaster X-Fi Titanium Fatal1ty Professional Series

PCI Express Sound Blaster X-Fi Titanium Fatal1ty Professional Series Reviews

Customer Rating:
Summary: Best Sound Card I ever seen.
Comment: I bought this sound card for a read HQ sound experience, and it was, sounds on the PC are a lot richer and detailed comparing to my old card the difference would be more then 100% to better. it is worth the price and it wasn't even very expensive.

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Customer Rating:
Summary: Superb
Comment: I'm a creative fan since years .. I started with 8-Bit Sound Blaster in 1991, then SB16, SBLive, SBAudigy, Audigy2 and Audigy4 ..

After Audigy4, I didn't buy the original x-fi because i had only one PCI slot and i didn't wanna block myself out. I was sure that a PCI-e version was coming soon ..

There is this crown .. it's amazing performer .. many people reported drivers issues but for me it worked like a charm on Vista Ultimate 32bit..

Amazingly, I had clear framrate improvement in Gears of War! I guess that's because the CPU now has more room to do serious tasks instead of doing sound processing.

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Customer Rating:
Summary: Excellent Sound Card!!!
Comment: This is an awesome product. Simple to install. Lots of features. Nice looking. Amazing sound (specially the surround sound created for headphones). Runs all my games with crystal-clear clarity, excellent effects and positional audio without a glitch.

This is not my first Sound Blaster, so I already know that the included drivers CD is outdated and loaded with bloatware. So, for those having problems with the card I suggest that you leave the included CD unopened and instead head to Creative's web site to grab the latest x-fi driver for your card, the latest control panel and the latest alchemy version. Install them in the following order:

1. Driver.
2. Control Panel.
3. ALchemy (Vista only).

Forget anything else included in the CD unless you really need it or want to try it.

I did that and I didn't have to activate anything. The activation is only needed if you plan to use the included software and I think it is because of some Dolby and DTS codecs but I'm not sure. With just those 3 things right now my X-Fi is running perfectly fine under Windows Vista 64-bit edition. I haven't found any incompatibility yet.

***UPDATE***

So far so good. I just wanted to include a few extra tips for those having problems.

I have a motherboard with Intel chipset (MSI X48 Platinum) and I haven't had any problem, but I've heard that people with nForce motherboards are having sound problems so I would like to suggest the following actions:

1. Download the latest BIOS file for your motherboard (if available) and update it. (See your manufacturer's web site for more information on this and be careful. You could brick your motherboard if it's not done properly.)

2. Download the latest chipset driver for your motherboard. It's gonna be either from Intel, from nVidia, from AMD or from VIA. Check their websites for instructions.

3. Download the latest Windows updates.

After you have done that then you can head to Creative's web site and grab the needed files. Finally install them in the mentioned order:

1. Driver.
2. Control Panel.
3. ALchemy.

The previous recommendations can also work for people having problems with this card, but who don't own a nForce motherboard.

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Customer Rating:
Summary: Vista support still lacking
Comment: This is the third product from Creative I have installed on a Vista 64 machine with the same results: 1) No microphone boosting option. This means in most cases applications will not be able to pick up your voice because the levels are just too low. 2) Driver installation troubles. In the words of Creative support, which I had to contact: "Your X-Fi Titanium Fatal1ty Professional Series is being recognized as "Creative X-Fi Audio Processor (WDM)" in the device manager. This indicates that the X-Fi sound card is being detected as a generic soundcard from Microsoft Windows where a proper installation should list the sound card as "Creative X-Fi".

I have performed clean installations of this card. Some have to install the drivers multiple times before all of the files are properly installed/registered. Since there are so many different sound card models, finding community help is not easy. Often you will find misinformation based upon some other model. It's hard to find clear answers. As of yet, I have never come across an acknowledgment of this mic level issue other than vague comments from creative and lots of "me too" from other customers.

So that's it really. It is a nice card in many ways, but the packaging and information on the Creative website is misleading as all of the features do not work as advertised in Vista. This is the 3rd Creative card I have tried under Vista 64 with similar results.

I do like the metal shielding around the card.

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Customer Rating:
Summary: Good sound card, bad support
Comment: I bought the X-Fi Titanium hoping that it would work with Windows Vista or XP on a machine with an Nvidia 790i motherboard and Nvidia 9800GX2, but it doesn't.

I don't know why (creative support team doesn't know either) the card produces crackling and popping sounds from my rear speakers when I use the Dolby Digital or DTS Connect with my 9800GX2 in SLI while I am gaming. Many people has the same issues as me (in 790i EVGA forums), but untill now, there are no driver updates, patches, etc., that may fix this problem.

I have always had issues with my creative sound cards, but this time I believed that this Vista Certified product would work as expected but it doesn't.

I regret my purchase, I will never buy another creative product ever.

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